Heroes in a Half Shell
by Svendances
Summary: When Stephanie comes to the guys asking an unusual favour, they can't help but turn into the heroes she needs them to be. Short fic (hopefully) just a couple of chapters. All in good fun because I couldn't get the idea out of my head.
1. Chapter 1

_After recently revisiting my childhood, I noticed some uncanny parallels between one of the shows I used to adore and the Rangemen. It lead to the idea for this story. I hope you like it._

**Chapter 1**

"I have a favour to ask," I mentioned, as I slid into the booth at the back of Pino's. Ranger, Tank, Bobby and Lester were already gathered, suitably non-alcoholic drinks set before them – they still technically had had a work day left. I'd requested this meeting four hours ago, after a frantic call from my best friend Mary Lou. She had a dilemma, and I was pretty sure Ranger and his Merry Men were the only ones who could properly solve it.

"We'll do anything," Lester assured me.

At the same time, Bobby asked warily, "What kind of favour?"

Ranger shook his head ever so slightly and gave me a look that spelled out, "Babe."

Tank was silent.

These were the typical reactions I'd expected from the group. Now I just had to convince them to help me out. Mary Lou's problem wasn't exactly their usual gig, and there was a very strong possibility that they would flat out refuse once I told them. How to spin this to appeal to their values?

I took their continued silence as a cue to continue. "Mary Lou called me this morning," I began slowly, pouring myself a glass of iced tea from the pitcher in the centre of the table. "She has a problem."

"Is she okay?" Bobby asked quickly.

"Is she in danger?" Ranger questioned, placing his hands flat on the table and meeting my gaze with his impenetrable one.

"Does she need a better lover?" Lester asked with a grin and a waggle of his eyebrows.

Tank stayed silent.

I looked at each of them in turn, taking my time to form my reply. Was it possible to answer all three questions at once? Yes, I decided, but only because they were so far from the issue. "Nothing like that," I assured them, taking a sip of my tea and cringing at the taste on my tongue. "How can you drink this stuff?"

"It's good for you, Babe," Ranger replied. A stock standard answer to anything I didn't like these days. Running, despite the intense chest pain, and shortness of breath it caused, was good for me. Leafy greens, even though they left an awful taste in my mouth, were good for me. Green, sludgy smoothies, while causing me to retch and dry heave, were good for me.

I shook my head and pushed the glass away, signalling for the waitress to bring a glass of lemonade, or coke, or beer. Anything but what was in that glass right there.

"What's Mary Lou's problem?" Tank asked, when a long enough silence had passed. He was still brooding in the corner, squashed in by both Lester and Bobby so that Ranger and I could have the opposite booth to ourselves as usual.

"Mary Lou's problem," I started, utilising my high school question answering techniques for the first time since high school. "Is a lack of ninjas."

Bobby and Lester exchanged a dubious glance. When they both eventually returned their eyes to me, they asked simultaneously, "How can we help?"

Unfortunately, their question was overpowered by the rumbling protest from the hulking man in the corner. "We're not ninjas," he informed me firmly, staring at a spot on the wall. By my guess he was probably pretending to look out the window, except there wasn't a window next to our dimly lit booth in the back of the restaurant. Just a whole lot of wall.

"Okay," I sighed, clearly one of them was going to make this harder than it needed to be. "Hear me out," I requested. "Kenny is turning ten -."

"Who's Kenny," Lester interrupted.

With an eye roll, I started again. "Mary Lou's son Kenny is turning ten. And he -."

"He wants ninjas at his birthday party?" Bobby asked, sipping his horrible, gross, good for him drink.

"What are you asking, Babe?" Ranger asked.

Tank reminded us, "We're not ninjas."

Clasping my hands together in my lap, so as not to hit any one of them – history told that I would only end up hurting myself – I took a deep breath and forged on. All of nothing. It was the only way to get through this without getting completely frustrated with them all. Probably, I should have just asked Ranger and had him drag the men into it with blackmail or whatever he used to keep them loyal. It was too late now though. "Mary Lou's son, Kenny, is turning ten. He's having a birthday party. It's a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme. Mary Lou can't find -."

"We're not ninjas," Tank repeated once more. "Nor are we teenagers, mutants or turtles."

I was _thiiiiiiiis_ close to attempting to wrap my scrawning hands around his gargantuan neck. "I'm not _saying_ you're ninjas, or any of the other things," I told him exasperatedly. "I'm asking you to pretend, for one afternoon, to bring joy and happiness to a bunch of ten year old kids."

Silence covered the table as the men stared at each other for long moments. I sipped on my lemonade and ordered a meatball sub while I waited. Eventually, they either came to an agreement, or a stalemate, because all four men sat back, arms crossed over their chests.

"Do we have to dress up?" Ranger asked.

At the same time, Lester questioned, "Do we get to dress up?"

I nodded. "How do you expect to convince a bunch of kids that you're teenage mutant ninja turtles looking that that?" I asked, gesturing to their identical black uniforms. "The plus side is, you'll still match," I added, grinning as the waitress set down my sub. "Well, mostly. You'll have to wear different colour masks, cos that's what they do in the show."

"I call Mikey!" Lester exclaimed, hand straight up in the air, like he was in math class and had suddenly worked out the answer to a rather complicated sum in his head. We all looked at him. "What?" he asked, lowering his hand slowly. "I was a kid once."

The guys shook their heads, ignoring Lester and I found myself stuck in Ranger's gaze once more. "Will you be dressing up?" he asked.

I sighed, like it was a hardship, and informed them, "Unfortunately, there are only four ninja turtles."

"You can have my spot," Tank said mildly.

"The ninja turtles are all guys, too," I added.

Lester shook his head, hastily swallowing a mouthful of iced tea that may have come complete with ice. "Not true," he said with the same amount of authority that Bobby usually held when talking about injuries. "In 1997 to 98 there was a live action Ninja turtles series called the next mutation that featured a female ninja turtle named Venus de Milo. Or Venus for short."

Once again, we all stared at him. I don't know about anyone else, but I was doing some quick math in my head. I knew for a fact that it was 2014 now. And that Lester was currently thirty four years old. 1997 was seventeen years ago. That would put Lester at seventeen. Hardly a child…

"1998 was the year we joined the army," Bobby pointed out.

"Yes, it was," Lester agreed, studiously avoiding his gaze.

"Were you watching ninja turtles when you were eighteen years old?" Bobby asked.

Lester let out a noise, clearly forced. "Of course not," he assured us. "I just read about the series…"

"I don't think admitting to looking up Ninja Turtles shows more recently is going to help the guys perception of you," I informed him helpfully."

"They might be willing to sweep it under the rug if I told them that the ninja turtles had an incredibly hot female reporter that they hung out with," Lester retorted. "April O'Neil."

Ranger shook his head, the movement so slight that I could almost pretend it didn't happen. But then, of course, he opened his mouth. "Your offhand knowledge of this is disturbing," he said quietly. Then he turned to me once more, clarifying, "You want us to dress up like turtles and pretend to be ninjas?"

I nodded quickly. "It would really mean a lot to Mary Lou and Kenny." I paused. "And me. I'd be eternally grateful."

"What kind of payment can we expect for this?" Tank asked.

I cast around for a number both Mary Lou and I could afford, but it wasn't a very big total, so instead I shrugged. "All the pizza you can eat?"

Lester burst out laughing. "Hahahaa! Good one, Bomber!" he enthused. "Pizza! Cos we're the ninja turtles!"

"What's he on about?" Bobby asked, looking to me, since I was apparently the one to make the joke.

"No idea," I admitted.

Lester, having sobered from his laughing fit, stared at all of _us_ for a change. "You're kidding," he said, sounding deadly seriously. "You don't get that reference?" We shook our heads. We really, really didn't. A sigh fell from his lips. "Meet at my apartment tonight, seven o'clock. If we're going to do this, you all need an education."

_Did you watch TMNT as a child? Do you watch it now? If so, who's your favourite Ninja Turtle? Also, give me your predictions for which Rangeman ends up as which Turtle :D_


	2. Chapter 2

_Thanks so much for the bodacious reviews! The response to this story is blowing my mind. Here's the next chapter._

**Chapter 2**

I'd never been to Lester's apartment before, but as I stood by the door taking it all in, I realised that it was exactly as I'd expected it to be. Messy. It was hard to reconcile the image of the hard military man who had obviously learned a lot of discipline during his years of service with the fact that he left his underwear on the floor beside the hamper. And he had ample warning that I would be coming over! I shuddered, averting my eyes to the large single bed that hugged the wall on one side of the single room apartment. It was unmade, not that it bothered me, but I caught a glimpse of a magazine I preferred not to associate with before abruptly turning my head forward and hissing air in through my teeth. If I left this apartment without a disease it would be a miracle.

"It's not that bad, Bomber," Bobby said, sidling through the door behind me. "While Lester is far less than tidy, he is at least clean."

"Tell that to the dirty underwear threatening to crawl across the room and strangle me," I replied, eyes wide. There was just no way to unsee what I'd already seen.

"Well," Bobby said, following my gaze. "That's just distasteful. Lester, you have a lady over, hide your filthy panties."

Startled, Lester turned from where he'd been fiddling with things on his coffee table and glanced around the room, as if taking it in for the first time. In the next moment he was seemingly everywhere in the room, putting things away, covering things up and straightening things. "Sorry," he said, pausing in front of me. "I got distracted."

"I'll distract my foot up your ass if I walk in to find your apartment in such a shambles again," Ranger growled, taking me by the waist and leading me to the couch.

For one, terrifying moment I thought I was going to have to sit on the furniture, but then, thankfully, Ranger pulled me down onto his lap. A glance around the room suggested that it was probably because there wouldn't be enough sitting space otherwise, but I'd like to assume he was saving me from herpes.

Once everyone was squished onto the couch – or standing, in Lester's case – Ranger made a small gesture with his hand to indicate that Lester should get on with his educating.

"Right," Lester began, lowering himself into a cross legged position on the other side of the coffee table, facing us. "These," he spread his hands out to show a group of plastic toy turtle things on the table. "Are the ninja turtles. Leonardo, the leader. Raphael, the rebel. Donatello, the brains. Aaand Mikey." He pointed at each one in turn, but when he got to Mikey, he picked the action figure up and made it do a couple of kicks and a flip. "Mikey's the best, guys."

We all rolled our eyes. Well. _I _rolled _my _eyes, and the others thought about doing the same.

"Who's the mouse?" Tank asked, pointing to the plastic rodent figure off to one side.

Bobby shook his head. "The length of the nose indicates that it's probably a rat."

"To-may-to, to-mah-to," Tank replied. "Who is he?"

"Master Splinter!" Lester informed us, excitedly. "He pretty much raised the turtles and taught them to be ninjas."

"And the thing with the helmet?" Ranger asked, pointing to the thing with the helmet on the very edge of the table.

"Uh… that's the Shredder. He's the bad guy." There was a pause of about three seconds before Lester added, "Oh! I have April O'Neil around here somewhere too!" He rummaged through a cardboard box I hadn't noticed was beside him for a few moments. "Ah, April," he said, placing the figure of a woman in a yellow jacket on the table next to the others.

I looked at the other guys on the couch with me. "Okay, just putting it out there," I mentioned. "If I have to dress up as well, I'm April O'Neil." Pause. "Unless anyone else would like to be her…"

"She's all yours, Babe."

"I'm Shredder," Tank announced, crossing his arms.

Lester and I both shook our heads. My protest was that Mary Lou had specifically asked for the Ninja Turtles. Lester's was probably a principle matter. "You can't be Shredder," I announced. "You have to be a Ninja Turtle."

Tank locked his glare on me. "Then how come you get to be a human?"

"Because I'm a girl," I replied coolly.

Bobby, attempting to be helpful, pointed out, "Lester mentioned that Venus turtle at lunchtime. You could be her."

Thankfully, it was Lester who came to my defence. "Ten year old kids aren't gonna know who Venus is, Bobby. It makes sense that Bomber is April. Someone's gotta have use of all five of their fingers, just in case we get a zipper caught or something."

"We're talking about this like it's a done thing," Ranger murmured behind me. "I don't remember actually agreeing to dress up for a kids birthday party. I'm not a clown."

I turned slightly so I could see his face and gave him the sexiest grin I could muster. "You're doing it because you love me," I told him. "And you like to see me happy. This will make me very happy. And if you play your cards right I might let you do that special thing you like so much."

"Woah," Lester and Bobby woahed.

"You know we're right here, right?" Bobby reminded us. "Can you save it for later?"

"Yeah," Lester agreed. "You're making me uncomfortable."

"Tell us more about the turtles," Ranger requested to distract Lester and Bobby from our special talk, but he dragged me further onto his lap at the same time. "What are their characteristics?"

"Okay," Lester said, rummaging in the box once more. "They each have different weapons. Leo has Katana," he laid a pair of plastic swords on the table in front of the small Leonardo toy. The size comparison was definitely not right, given that the handles of the swords were roughly the same size at the figure. "Raph has Sai." In front of the Raphael toy he set a pair of three pronged pointy things. Again, they were grossly oversized for the figurine. "Donnie has a Bo staff." He pulled a plastic stick that was meant to look like wood out of the box and laid it on the table. "And Mikey has the nunchucks." Rather than simply laying the plastic nunchucks on the table, as he had the other three weapons, Lester spun them around dramatically for a moment, before one of the handles hit him in the head and he decided to stop.

"These are for close combat," Tank pointed out. "We're not trained in close combat. We're not ninjas. We're soldiers."

Apparently having heard enough, Bobby punched Tank in the upper arm. "What we're looking at here," Bobby explained. "Is a unique opportunity to expand our skill set. Imagine how much more formidable we'd be if we had these skills under our belts."

"Uh," I uttered, feeling a little uncomfortable. "I really just need you to pretend. It's a kid's party, remember? With kids. That we don't want accidentally injured?"

"Stephanie's right," Ranger agreed. "We don't want to hurt the kids."

Lester nodded, pulling an iPad out of somewhere. "I'm on it."

I was afraid to ask, but the ever present curiosity won out. "On what, exactly?"

"I'm ordering a weapons for us to practice with so we don't accidentally chop some kid's hand off," he explained.

"Uh," I uttered again. I really didn't expect this much enthusiasm when I'd offered to ask the guys if they'd do this for Mary Lou. It was a little overwhelming. "Maybe you should just use these plastic ones?"

It was Bobby who protested now. "Steph," he said, laying a hand on my thigh. "These plastic ones are made for kids. They're not big enough."

"Then get adult sized fakes," I suggested. "Ones that won't hurt a child if he accidentally gets a hold of it."

"The kids aren't gonna get a hold of them, Babe," Ranger assured me. "We're too good for that."

"You obviously haven't met Mary Lou's kids," I returned.

Eventually, I managed to convince them that for work place health and safety reasons, they should probably practice with non-lethal versions of the weapons to start off with to avoid undue injury. Okay, so maybe Bobby helped with the convincing, but only after I appealed to his professional medical opinion. Once the two sets of weapons were ordered – one real and one fake – Lester announced that in order to fully understand the Ninja Turtle way, we had to _watch _some Ninja Turtles.

So we did.

He started us off with the very latest movie. The one where they turtles looked extremely badass. He then made us watch some of the original live-action movies. And after that, a smattering of the tv series from across the years, including the cartoon series that was still running on the kids channel. We watched them back to back, ordering pizza at some point – to get in the spirit of things, Lester assured us when Ranger protested the idea of junk food in his building – and I may have dozed off somewhere during the viewing, because the next thing I knew, I was waking up to the sound of two, large men arguing over who would be which character.

For a moment, I assumed it was Bobby and Lester, fighting over Lester's beloved Mikey, because they seemed the most likely to get into such a petty argument. But as I slowly raised myself from the dead, realising that I had been laid out on a decidedly clean sheet on the decidedly questionable couch, I realised it was Tank and Ranger.

"I should be Raphael," Ranger was saying. "I'm the rebel. I'm the most fearsome and fearless!"

"You should be Leo!" Tank countered. "The LEADER. Because, oh, look at that! You're the leader! You don't have the _strength_ to be Raphael."

Ranger shook his head. "The internet bio said that Leonardo leads by EXAMPLE, not by handing out orders. I hand out orders all the time. And right now I'm ordering you to be Leonardo. You always lead by example! The men _respect_ you."

"The men respect you too!" Tank shouted, matching the rising volume of Ranger's voice. "No one works or trains harder than you do. I deserve to be Raph!"

"On what grounds?" Ranger asked, his voice light and venomous all of a sudden.

"Because I prefer to be alone," Tank stated. "It says so right there." He jabbed at the laptop screen on the table. "That's me all over. And mastering my emotions? HELLO?! Who rammed Lester's head into a wall last week because he was chewing too loudly?"

I struggling to understand how the guys had become so passionate about this topic all of a sudden, when the subtle tshhhhhh of a can opening drew my attention to Lester and Bobby, sitting side by side on the kitchen counter, a six pack between them and a bunch of empty cans on the table in front of them.

"We were trying to decide who would be who," Lester explained unnecessarily.

"Lester and I were the obvious choices for Mikey and Donnie," Bobby added.

"And then BAM!" Lester continued. "This happened." He chugged from his can. "Raph and Leo fight all the time, so I guess its fitting. Wanna beer?"

I nodded, crossing the space to grab the can from his hands and hitch myself up onto the counter beside Bobby. "What do Raph and Leo fight about?" I asked as Bobby steadied me.

"Who's the leader," Lester replied. "Master Splinter kinda put Leo in charge, but Raph think's he'd be better at it, so he often gets huffy and goes off on his own."

"So who do you think should be Raph and Leo?" I questioned.

"Tank is definitely Raph-ier," Lester mentioned. "But Ranger always gets what he wants."

I returned my attention to the other two men. While I'd been distracted their argument had turned from merely yelling at each other to physical blows. Currently, Tank had Ranger in a head lock and appeared to be cutting off his airways.

"Woah, woah woah," I exclaimed, hopping down from the counter and hurrying over to the men. "Tank, let him go. There are better ways to settle this."

Tank didn't let Ranger go. He just stared at me with a _How? _expression.

"Scissors, Paper, Rock," I told them. "Let Ranger go. Play Scissors, Paper, Rock. First to five wins gets to pick which turtle they are."

Slowly, Tank and Ranger faced off, fists cupped in their hands at the ready.

"Scissors, Paper, Rock," they chanted as one, changing their hand symbols as they said rock. One point to Ranger. "Scissors, Paper, Rock," they chanted again. Another point to Ranger. They played twice more, Ranger winning both rounds before Tank dropped his hands.

"This isn't fair!" he roared. "He's using his ESP!"

"Ranger doesn't have ESP," I assured him, even though I'd often stated that he did.

Tank shook his head, downed the last of the beer that was on the bedside table beside him and threw the can in the vague direction of the bin on his way to the door. "Whatever," he growled. "Ranger can be whoever he wants." And with that, he disappeared out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

"Yep," Lester whispered to Bobby. "Tank is _definitely_ suited to Raphael."

_So, Tank and Ranger got a little out of hand just now. I wasn't planning for this chapter to end like this..._


End file.
